


Warm

by Spark_Writer



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Declarations Of Love, Drug Addiction, F/F, Falling In Love, Femlock, John is Very Soft and Swears A Lot, Kissing, Longing, Mutual Pining, POV John Watson, Pining, Pining John, Pining Sherlock, Romance, sad wanking, so very much pining, why are they like this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-10 22:04:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7862872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spark_Writer/pseuds/Spark_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John buries her feelings to the best of her abilities, but it’s like trying to bury someone alive. This is no breathless corpse. Try as she might, her want always rises to the surface, writhing with life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm

 

 

Weddings are awful, John thinks, her eyes poring over Sherlock as they wait to take their seats. Looking at Sherlock hurts John. No one should be allowed to be that beautiful. John stares at Sherlock’s collarbones and the delicate hollow between them, where there rests a single amethyst on a chain. Stares and stares. She can’t keep letting herself do this, gazing at Sherlock whenever Sherlock’s attention is occupied elsewhere. It cannot happen anymore. Yet try as she might, John can’t take her eyes away.

The dress is almost worse. It’s a deep burgundy, the same hue as the Merlot Sherlock loves. The material falls clear to the floor, making Sherlock look impossibly tall.

John feels unimpressive by comparison, clad in her only semi-formal black dress. Her cheeks are warm from champagne and from Sherlock (Sherlock’s horrible beauty, annihilating John’s dignity. Wrecking her utterly). 

She could scream her frustration, but what good would that do? Sherlock is married to The Work. Sherlock doesn’t do relationships. Sherlock doesn’t feel things that way.

John lets her head fall back, staring at the ceiling in quiet misery.

 

…

 

Sherlock had saved the bride’s life several months earlier. The woman, named Alexandra, had been so thankful that she’d invited Sherlock to her wedding on the spot. Sherlock had grumbled to John and John had insisted she attend.

“What kind of message would it send if you didn’t go?” John pressed.

“I _hate_ weddings,” Sherlock had complained, goggles pushed onto her forehead.

John had shoved aside a sudden, fierce impulse to cross the kitchen, remove the goggles, and kiss Sherlock breathless. “Would you go if I went with you?”

Sherlock pursed her lips. “Perhaps.”

John had smirked to herself. That meant yes.

Now, watching Alexandra take her place before her fiancé, her smile so brilliant it makes John’s gut twist, John once again finds herself looking at Sherlock. It’s a sidelong, furtive glance, full of everything she cannot say. For a moment she thinks of standing before Sherlock like that, about to vow her love for the rest of her life.

The vision is so real, that, for a split second, John cannot breathe properly. And of course it's just then that Sherlock turns her head and catches John’s gaze. John’s heart pounds. Fortunately, nothing must show on her face, because Sherlock simply gives her a brief smile before returning her focus to the vows.

“Do you take this man to be your husband?” asks the priest.

“I do,” says Alexandra, voice trembling.

John wants to run. She wants to run and run and run; away from the tearful smiles; away from the vows; away from the love so palpable it may as well be a pulsating heart hanging in the center of the chapel. Away from Sherlock.

She shouldn’t be here. This was a terrible mistake.

Sherlock nudges her. “What?” John hisses, rattled.

“You’re drifting.”

As always, Sherlock is right. John collects herself, straightening her spine. She buries her feelings to the best of her abilities, but it’s like trying to bury someone alive. This is no breathless corpse.

Try as she might, her want always rises to the surface, writhing with life.

…

 

“Are you all ready?” Alexandra is laughing, ready to toss her bouquet over her shoulder to some lucky young woman in the crowd. The girls around John jostle for space, elbowing each other.

“We’re ready!” A women to John’s left bounces on her toes, arms outstretched.

Alexandra lets the bouquet fly, arcing overhead in a graceful parabola. It speeds well past John, landing somewhere behind her. There is a rumble of disappointment from the women surrounding John as they swivel to see where the flowers fell.

There, standing at the very rear of the pack, is Sherlock, holding the bouquet, expressionless. Without a word, Sherlock moves toward John, extending the flowers. John takes them, perplexed.

“Marriage is your area, not mine.”

Sherlock sweeps past, leaving John to look at the roses in total bewilderment.

…

 

It is this exchange which follows John into bed that night. Her face is still warm, flushed with the memory of Sherlock’s proximity. As John undresses, she catches Sherlock’s cologne again—the detective’s preferred choice, given that “women’s perfume is dreadfully floral."

It must have rubbed off when they were dancing. Just one dance, it had been. Enough to take John apart, enough to make her desperate in ways she’d never known she could be, filled with need that Afghanistan, adrenaline, and bullets could never satisfy.

_Marriage is your area…_

John is pissed off by this, though she can’t understand why. Marriage isn’t her area, not remotely. The mere idea of it is unbearable, except—her mind returns to the fantasy of marrying Sherlock, and, well. The sheer yearning in her gut gives her away.

John sinks into bed, wearing nothing but pants. Somewhere below her, Sherlock is doing the same, crawling beneath the covers in a moment of utterly human vulnerability. John’s hand ghosts over her breasts and stomach, then lower. Goosebumps appear on her skin. She exhales, shaky.

Sherlock’s neck and her dress and her waist and her eyes and her mouth and the dancing and her her hands on John’s hips. Her neck her dress her waist her eyes her mouth her dancing her _hands_.

Sherlock.

Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock Sher—

John throws her head back, body racing with heat.

_…not mine._

John is breathing hard now, hard and fast and angry, hands moving, hips twitching into her own touch. What the hell does Sherlock know? She considers herself the best consulting detective in the world, yet she can’t even detect that her John is in love with her.

“So…bloody…oblivious,” John pants, chest falling and rising with abandon. Stars burst behind her eyes and it’s good, it’s so good she can’t breathe for a moment, back arching from the mattress, enraged yet burning with pleasure. She clutches her pillow, eyes squeezed shut so tight that fuchsia sparkles behind her lids. She comes back to Earth eventually, stinging with what she feels for Sherlock.

She isn’t going to do this again, John tells herself, rolling onto her side and flicking the blanket over her shoulders. Just as she said last time, and the time before that.

She falls asleep thinking of Sherlock handing her the flowers.  

...

 

“You can’t not come to my birthday party.”

Sherlock scowls as they march down the corridor to St. Bart’s lab, John rushing slightly to keep pace with Sherlock’s long strides. “Why not? I hate birthday parties.”

“Because you’re my best friend and I want you to be there.” John lowers her voice incrementally. “You should want to be there.”

“John—“

“This is the third time I’ve asked! Can’t you think of someone other than yourself for once?”

They turn a corner and Sherlock won’t look at John, her posture radiating displeasure. “It’s not that. You don’t understand.”

“Then help me to.” John follows her into the laboratory, dropping her bag onto the floor and regarding Sherlock with disappointment. “You never show up at my birthday parties and I’ve had two since I’ve known you. What am I supposed to make of that? Molly and Greg ask about it…they think it’s bizarre.”

“I don’t like birthdays,” Sherlock repeats, though it’s a bit different than what she said a moment earlier: _I hate birthday parties!_ Now it’s birthdays she doesn’t like.

“Yeah, I know, Sherlock. You’ve said it a million times, but you never tell me why. All it seems like to me is that you don’t see me as important enough to show up on my special day.” John turns and fumbles in her bag for her phone, hands shaking with anger.

“That isn’t— _no_!” Sherlock is emphatic, moving closer to John with a strangely wild quality in her eyes. It reminds John of the men she’s cornered in Afghanistan, men who knew their time was coming, men who lived each day in the shadow of death. “I—I want to be there, but—“

“Never mind,” John snaps, seething. “It’s too late. Even if you do show up, it’ll just seem like an obligation. You’ve made that quite clear."

“John, please.”

“I’m getting coffee,” says John, feeling the weight of frustration settle in her limbs. She pockets her phone and heads for the door.  Another birthday without her best friend. She clenches her first and releases it, unaware that behind her, Sherlock stands watching her go, eyes filling with tears.

 

…

 

The party is pathetic, as expected. John invites a bloke she met at work named Michael, who wears far too much cologne and has a dangerous little habit of sliding his hand up her thigh when no one else is looking. Lestrade and Molly are with them, sat around a battered oak table in the middle of a pub.

“Sherlock not coming, then?” Lestrade raises his lager to his lips, grimacing slightly at his own lack of tact.

“No.” John’s jaw is set. She fiddles with her napkin, glad for the din of the pub, which covers her silence. “She had…other obligations.”

Molly looks sympathetic. “I wouldn’t worry about it, John. Sherlock has never showed up to anything I’ve invited her to and I’ve known her for ages. It isn’t you.”

But it is, somehow. It feels intensely personal and John wishes it didn’t. “Yeah, thanks,” John replies, distracted. Michael is looking at her in a way she doesn’t particularly like.

“So,” Michael says, clearing his throat and leaning forward slightly, “This Sherlock woman you keep mentioning—what’s she like?”

“Impossible.” John gives bitter laugh.

“She helps us out at the Yard,” Greg supplies. “She’s a consulting detective—saved our arses more times than I can count. Don’t know where we’d be without her.”

“I work at the morgue in St. Bart’s,” Molly adds, “and whenever Sherlock needs a cadaver for experi—er, for investigative work—she sends me a text and I provide fresh corpses.” She tacks a smile onto the end of this proclamation, as if it is perfectly commonplace to supply corpses to one’s friends.

Michael blinks. John squirms inwardly.

“How long have you known Sherlock?” Michael asks John, visibly uncomfortable.

John swallows. Long enough to be furiously in love with her. “About three years now.”

“God, has it really been that long?” Lestrade rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I feel old as shit.”

Molly laughs and John does a bit, too. It feels good to laugh, to not think about Sherlock or her absence, tangible as a dead body among them.

“I’m the one who’s a year older,” John snorts, her chest looser than before.

“Speaking of which,” Lestrade rises from his seat. “Another round, on me. Molly, fancy coming with?”

Molly looks pleased. “Absolutely!” She follows Greg to the bartender, leaving John alone with Michael. He wastes no time in putting his palm on her knee and leaning in, lips on her neck. John lets him for a moment, feeling numb, totally removed from herself. It is her phone which snaps her back to reality, vibrating against her hip.

Sherlock.

John opens the text, absurdly hopeful.

10:37 PM  
_Stop at the morgue on your way back. Need new liver supply._  
- _SH_

No mention of John’s birthday. No apology. No contrition.

“Get off,” John says suddenly, pushing Michael away. He recoils, stunned. “You’re a grown man in public. Act like one.”

She's had enough. She stands, pulling her jacket on. No need to say goodbye to Molly and Greg. They're obviously fine on their own—they're still at the bar, and Greg is leaning in to Molly, telling her something that's making her laugh and go pink.

Outside, the chill welcomes John. She breathes in, grateful for the wind. She hails a cab and slips inside, feeling Sherlock’s absence particularly strongly now.

“St. Bart’s Hospital.”

They swerve into the London night.

…

 

  
The right lobe is slightly damaged, John notes, eyeing the pilfered liver in her lap through its transparent packaging, as the cab pulls over. She tumbles out of the cab and lets herself into 221; stands blinking in the dim entryway. She is angry at Sherlock, angry and stung and inflamed. Her chest aches. She stands for a moment in darkness softened only by the glow coming from beneath Mrs. Hudson’s door, then makes for the stairs.  
  
When she reaches the top, John slips into the flat, hands full of liver. She stops dead in the doorway.

Sherlock is curled in John’s chair, folded around her Union Jack pillow as though it were something precious. She's sound asleep.

Sherlock is in her chair. _Sherlock_ is in her chair. Sherlock is in _her_ chair.

This is a fact.

John breathes because it is the only thing she knows how to do. In for four seconds, hold for four seconds, out for four seconds.

Repeat.

She places the liver next to last night’s spaghetti Bolognese. Her hands are shaking. She cannot stop thinking about Sherlock in her chair, her faint scattering of freckles, warm in the lamplight, hair everywhere. She cannot stop thinking that somehow this chair is like her heart and that Sherlock has curled up squarely in the midst of it. Astonishing. Ridiculous.

John is in love with Sherlock.

This, too, is a fact.

John is in love with Sherlock and Sherlock is in John’s chair. But Sherlock does not love John back. Because if she did, she wouldn’t ignore John’s compliments and misread her praise. If she did, John would not be sleeping alone in a room upstairs, wracked with nightmares of a past that will never release her.

If Sherlock loved her back, John wouldn’t be returning from her own birthday party alone.

If Sherlock loved her back, the chair would mean something.

It doesn’t.

…

 

John wakes the following day, feeling horrendous. 

“God,” she says to the ceiling.

Her head pounds. She clutches at it, as though she could press the pain out with her fingers. Perhaps a long, scalding shower will do her good. It’s worth a shot. Swinging her legs gingerly over the edge of the mattress, John gets herself upright and fumbles for her mobile. There’s only one text, from Michael.

  
1:13 AM  
U r a bitch.

Ineloquent bastard.

John gathers her towel from the hook on the door and pads downstairs. Sherlock is nowhere in evidence. It’s already 11:14 in the morning, but perhaps she’s having a lie-in. John eyes the door to Sherlock’s bedroom, noticing that it’s been drawn tightly shut.

Odd, that. Sherlock usually sleeps with it cracked one or two inches wide. Nonplussed, John closes herself in the bathroom and turns the shower as hot as it will go. A stab of nausea makes her grab the edge of the sink, sweat breaking out on her forehead. She hates drinking too much. Loathes it.

She’s been doing it for months now, though, and she knows exactly why.

John steps out of her pajamas and into the shower, wrenching the curtain shut. The water streams over her, as if cleansing her of unknown sins. Eyes closed, she tips her head back into the glorious warmth, reaching for her shampoo and squeezing a dollop of it into one shaking palm. She’s already massaged half of it into her hair when she realizes too late that it’s Sherlock’s.

It’s a dark sort of fragrance, spicy and unbearably satisfying. Each time John catches a whiff of it when Sherlock passes, she wants to press her nose into Sherlock’s curls and breathe it in for hours. The presence of it in her own hair is dizzying. John tips her head back once more, rinsing the suds away, when, without warning, the bathroom door flies open and Sherlock’s vague outline appears through the shower curtain.

“What are you doing?” John demands.

“I need the peroxide.” Sherlock surges over the threshold, opening first one cabinet, then the other. “Where is it? Where have you put it?”

“You can’t wait five bloody minutes?”

“Ten.”

“What?”

“You’ve only just finished doing your shampoo. From here it usually takes you seven minutes, plus the three when you take the removable shower head and—“

“Shut up,” John snaps, blushing despite the fact that she is quite hidden from view.

“To answer your question, no. I can’t wait.” Sherlock makes an irritated noise, and something clatters to the floor. “John, what have you done with it?”

“First of all, I haven’t done a damn thing with it, and second of all, I am very hung over, so if you’ll kindly wait until I’m done with my shower that would b—“

“It isn’t my fault you went and got drunk with Michael.” Sherlock utters his name as though he is some vile mythological beast. “You’re a grown woman. Exercise some self-control.”

“Excuse me?” Forget the conditioner. John pokes her head out from behind the curtain and glares at Sherlock. Sherlock’s hair is in splendid disarray, her porcelain complexion slightly rosy from the steam. It’s unbearable. 

In the face of John's stare, Sherlock wilts a bit. “I’m just saying that if you actually used your willpower rather than letting it wither away, life might be easier for you.”

“Well, you know what, Sherlock? I’ve used up all my willpower dealing with you.” John pulls the curtain shut again, seething. Her migraine has intensified. “Get your peroxide later and leave me in peace.”

“But I’m bleeding.” The last word sounds petulant. Childlike.

“What, why?”

“Experiment.”

“In your room?”

“It involved a letter opener and a length of string.”

“Jesus.” John turns the shower off, immediately resenting its absence. She pulls the curtain aside, careless about nudity from her time in the army, and steps onto the rug.

Sherlock eyes fall to the rumpled skin on John’s shoulder and remain there for a moment, riveted. John swallows. The butterflies in her stomach can, quite frankly, go to hell. She lifts her gaze to the navy dressing gown slung over the hook on the far wall and reaches for it, her expression betraying nothing. “Show me the cut.”

Silently, Sherlock extends her arm, wrist smeared crimson. John cups Sherlock’s forearm and carefully angles it toward the light. Her veins are violet beneath her soft skin, warm under John’s touch. John closes her eyes briefly.

“The peroxide,” Sherlock reminds her.

“I’m getting to that.” John reaches into the cupboard and withdraws the bottle, unscrewing the cap and filling it with clear, fizzing liquid.

Sherlock’s slight intake of breath when John applies the peroxide is one of both pain and relief. It is a familiar sound, John thinks, remembering her days in Afghanistan. Remembering the blood and stabbing sunlight and sand in her collar, in her hair. She bites her lip and presses a pad of white gauze against the underside of Sherlock’s wrist.

“Keep pressing that hard,” she instructs.

“John.” Sherlock’s voice is odd.

“Yes?”

“What’s that on your neck?”

John frowns, meeting Sherlock’s gaze in the mirror. “Sorry?”

“Just there, beneath your jaw.”

Sherlock brushes the back of her index finger against John’s carotid, and in rush of embarrassment, John understands. She remembers Michael’s mouth moving on her skin at the pub last night. It’s juvenile, humiliating in the light of day. A physical reminder of something she deeply regrets.

“It’s nothing.”

Sherlock’s face does something complicated and she leans against the sink, mouth tight. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” John shoves the peroxide back in its place, averting her eyes.

“John.” Meeting Sherlock’s eyes is tremendously difficult, yet John does it somehow. “Is it—did he—“

John erupts. “I have known you for three years, Sherlock, and never once have you thrown a fit about a fucking hickey. Grow up, would you?”

Sherlock’s eyes go wide. She moves from the bathroom so quickly it’s startling, wrenching the door shut behind her. John hears the wooden slam of Sherlock’s bedroom door, and regret worms into her stomach.

Sherlock does not speak to John for the rest of the day.

...

 

 “What do you mean, ‘Lestrade was right’?” Sherlock marches into the sitting room and throws her scarf down, face contorted with disgust. “All you’ve done all afternoon is side with him.”

“Well, it wasn’t the butler, was it?” John watches Sherlock toss her coat aside. “You were wrong.”

“Wrong!” Sherlock tears off her cardigan and flings it to the floor as if it were a bomb, leaving her only in trousers and a button-down. “I wasn’t _wrong_.”

“Greg said it’d be the maid at the beginning, and you spent half the day insisting on the butler."

“What sort of person operates under the assumption that a murder is going to conclude itself in such a basic and plebian manner as this one? I’d rather shoot myself than write a mystery novel that dull.”

“Stop sulking.” John kicks off her shoes. “Lestrade got it right. Admit it.”

“If by right you mean he’s stupid enough to assume only the most terribly obvious, then yes. Correct.” Sherlock moves restlessly into the kitchen, opens the refrigerator and scowls at the selection of food. “You said you’d go shopping this morning. There’s nothing but a human liver and ten carrot sticks in here.”

“I had to cover for Elise, remember? Her arthritis was acting up again and she couldn’t make it into work.”

“Yes, well, next time you choose to be a good samaritan, do it when we’re not out of food.”

Sherlock shuts the fridge and leans against the counter, biting her full lower lip. Her hair has all but slipped out of its low bun, coming to loose to frame her face in entirely awful (wondrous) ways. John swallows, breathes in. Swallows again. She stares as Sherlock pours herself a glass of water from the pitcher and downs it in one go.

“Sherlock,” says John, very quietly.

“Hm?”

“I saw something when you were drinking that water just now.”

Sherlock looks puzzled. An errant curl makes its way onto her forehead, just between her brows, and oh, how John wants terribly to brush it aside.

“Pour yourself another glass and drink it. I’m going to watch.” John moves closer, heart doing funny things in her chest.

“Why?

 “Shut up and drink the water, Sherlock.” John shoves the refilled glass at her, voice tight.

“Not until you explain _why_.”

“Do it,” John snaps, eyes fixed to the stretch of Sherlock’s neck just below her jaw. “Now.” Her tone is white-hot, unyielding.

Sherlock flushes mysteriously and lifts the glass to her lips, glaring at John as though John has slapped her. “Fine.”

“Sherlock,” says John, warningly, and Sherlock takes a tentative sip.

“Not like that. In one go.”

“ _Jo_ —“

“I need to see you do it.”

Sherlock makes a noise of frustration and downs her water in one, looking terribly beautiful in the dying light. The things John would do to her if this were—different. If they were different.

Sherlock finishes and sets the glass on the table with a clink. John’s suspicions are confirmed.

“Come on,” she says. “We’re going to the hospital.”

“What is the _matter_ with you?” Sherlock asks, the first notes of panic appearing on her face. “You’re acting ridiculous.”

“I never told you how my father died,” says John, grabbing her keys to the flat and pocketing them with untrembling fingers. She grabs Sherlock’s coat from the floor and tosses it to her. “When he was forty-six he caught pretty bad pneumonia. It stuck around for ages, and, well, we all thought he was just taking a bit longer to recover than usual, but when he went in for a CAT scan of his chest, the technician noticed something abnormal on the imaging.” She steps back into her shoes, not meeting Sherlock’s eyes.

“What was it?” Sherlock asks numbly. “The abnormal part.”

“Anaplastic thyroid cancer. That thing was an aggressive son of a bitch,” John says bitterly. “It wanted him dead.”

“It got what it wanted, didn’t it."

John hates the softness of Sherlock’s voice, hates how completely, devastatingly precious it is to her. “Yes.”

Sherlock closes her eyes.

John stands, watching her, one hand on the doorknob. “The lump he had his neck…it was little. Barely noticeable. And you know what? You’ve got one just like it.”

Sherlock’s eyes open, terrified. John meets her gaze.

“But you’re—you’re a doctor. Surely you can tell if it’s malignant or not.”

“Why do you think I became a doctor?” John asks, expressionless. “Every time I save someone in a clinic or out on a bloody battlefield, I’m trying to save my dad.”

Sherlock’s hand spasms slightly, as though to reach for John, touch her, comfort her, but she doesn’t follow through, and John turns away.

They go.

 

…

 

In the cab, Sherlock talks about her dog. Redbeard. An Irish Setter who was her best friend until, apparently, her ninth birthday.

“No one noticed it until he couldn’t eat or drink anymore,” she says, and her head sinks slowly down to rest on John's shoulder.

"Noticed what?" John murmurs. She rests her hand on Sherlock's wild, thick hair, smooths it back slowly.

“The tumor in his belly.”

“Oh, Sherlock.”

“He lived another three days,” says Sherlock, turning her face into John's neck, “until his body couldn’t take it anymore. I held him while he died. I cried so hard I couldn't see. No one could get me to let go. It was…awful.”

John can’t see; her eyes are burning with tears. Sherlock doesn’t speak for a moment. And then—

“I’m afraid, John.” Her voice resonates in John’s skin. It belongs there. “But it’s alright, because I’ve got you.”

“Yes,” says John, and her suppressed want rises from its hidden places in such a swell of yearning she thinks she will die. Sherlock makes a sound and moves closer. John doesn’t breathe, feeling as if Sherlock is a rare butterfly that has alighted on her skin. “You have me, always. You have me.”

 

…

 

When they arrive at the hospital, Sherlock vomits neatly onto the pavement. Then she wipes her mouth with a tissue as though this is a perfectly normal thing to do, and turns toward John.

“Shall we?”

…

 

The usual behavior of one stuck waiting in A&E for their friend to get scanned is to acquire a shitty cup of coffee, pace a bit, and perhaps watch the evening news from the grainy television propped in one corner. Instead, John composes letters to Sherlock in her head. Love letters.

 _Dear Sherlock,_ she begins, staring at the empty seat beside her. Everything is surreal, aching. Sherlock might be rampant with malignant cells. John might be losing her.

She inhales sharply, and tries again.

_Dear Sherlock,  
You can’t die. I won’t survive losing you._

No, stupid. God.

_Dear Sherlock,  
If you die, I’ll kill you._

Well, at least that’s accurate.

_Dear Sherlock,  
I need you._

Yes. John feels a shiver along her spine, emotions roiling in her stomach. She’s getting closer.

_Dear Sherlock,  
I adore you. The shape of your mouth. The names you call me--nutter, git, idiot, arse. Your laugh. Your warmth when you’re not trying to hide it. The thousands of ways you make me feel I've been granted a miracle. Your nose. Its slope, the perfection of it. Your eyebrows. God, I adore your eyebrows. You’ve no idea how many times I’ve pictured running my thumb along them and down, drawing you into a kiss. Your voice. The cadence of it. Your slow smiles.  I adore our synchronicity._

John breathes and breathes, steeling herself against a wash of tears.

_I'm a coward, Sherlock. You could be dying, and I'm still too scared to speak. But if I wasn’t, if I was brave enough, I’d tell you that I forgive you for all those stupid things you've said, that I know you always try your best, that certain things are worth compromising for. That you’re one of them. I would tell you that even if you die I’ll never forget what we were given, these blazingly sweet days. I’d tell you that I can’t bear losing you. That I ache for you, that my ridiculous heart seems to pump only for you, that you’ve woven yourself into its tissues and its veins, inseparable from my blood. If I was as brave as you think I am, I would tell you that it was always going to be you. That I can’t stop loving you, that I don’t want to._

She digs her teeth into her bottom lip, and continues.

 _It might have happened standing over a dead body. In the kitchen, chopping vegetables for an omelet. Down an alleyway at midnight. The time you wore a suit. Running. Laughing and bickering over curried beef. In St. Bart’s, you peering down you microscope while I watched you and wondered how on earth anyone could be so_ _remarkable. I don't know when it started. It doesn't matter. The point is, I’m in love with you._

_I’m in love with you, Sherlock, and I’m frightened of it. I’m frightened of how much I feel for you. It is so big, this love. It can’t stay contained in my body. I don’t think it’ll ever end. I want to tell you so badly. But I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry._

_Yours,  
John_

She comes to herself when a nurse calls her name, clutching the arms of her chair.

“John Watson? Your friend needs you.”

…

 

“She’s been a wonderful patient so far,” the nurse informs John, adjusting his glasses with his free hand. “So compliant.”

If this were a less dire situation John would laugh aloud at the uncharacteristic description, but instead she asks, “Is Sherlock safe? Is the lump malignant, I mean?”

“ _It_ was benign, but her heart arrhythmia wasn’t. The doctor did a quick EKG and discovered a bit of a cardiac obstruction on the left side. The surgeons just performed emergency surgery. She should be home in about twenty-four hours, but thank God you brought her in when you did. She said something about you being a doctor before we put her under, is that true?”

“Yes,” says John, hardly breathing. “I'm an army doctor. Captain John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers.”

“Well, good for you! We don’t get enough female captains around here.” The nurse—Bailey, according to his name tag—leads John down a second corridor. “Your friend’s been asking for you. Insistently. I’ve never seen anyone so worked up. Pretty impressive, given the amount of anesthesia flooding her system right now.”

John wobbles a little, weak with relief and sudden affection. Sherlock needs her. They arrive at room 124 and Bailey ushers her inside.

“Sit,” he says, cheerily pushing a rolling chair in John’s direction, but John ignores it. She steps nearer the bed. Sherlock is lying half-buried in the covers, looking limp and small. Her eyebrows are drawn together painfully. "Sherlock," John says quietly.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Bailey says. “Push that button if you need anything."

Sherlock instantly turns her face toward John’s voice, eyes still closed. She looks exhausted. “John…you…you’re here.”

“Well, of course, you idiot. How are you feeling?” John is pleased at her own ability to steady her tone against the quiver straining to come loose.

“Strange,” Sherlock slurs and John laughs despite herself.

“You’re a bit drugged up, that’s why. But the tumor was nothing and your heart’s been all fixed up. You’re going to be fine. Thank God I brought you in when I did,” she says, repeating Bailey’s words.

Sherlock opens her eyes at this, sleepy and delirious and gazing at John with a shining intensity. “Yes…thank God,” Sherlock echoes, and edges toward the side of the bed nearest John, extending her hand.

John takes it, cursing internally. This is dangerous—she's off her guard, now, seeing Sherlock like this, so open, and needing her. Sherlock could easily deduce the state of her emotions from the strength of her grip or the length of time she holds her hand, but she can't bring herself to pull away. “Be careful of your bandaging, yeah? You ought to stay still.”

“Don’t want to,” Sherlock counters, rosy and still holding John’s hand. “Want…” She trails into silence.

“What do you want?” John murmurs.

“I…” Sherlock sighs, a long, complicated sigh that sends paroxysms of hope into John’s gut. Then she looks into John’s eyes. “You never fail me.”

The air is punched from John’s lungs. “I never will,” she vows, barely above a whisper.

“Mmm.” Sherlock closes her eyes, smiling peculiarly. “ _John_.”

Then she’s asleep.

 

 

…

 

John’s whole body is shaking slightly when she steps out of Sherlock’s room. There is an ache beside her sternum, a vague jab of pain that feels rather like being stabbed. She knew she was—is—in love with Sherlock, but this is overwhelming. Sherlock is still recovering from the brain-scrambling, inhibitions-lowering effects of the anesthesia, John reminds herself, stumbling down the corridor in a daze.

John has been down this road before. Hoped too hard. Assumed men or women loved her back when, in actuality, she’d just projected her own desire onto them like a film noir on an old bed-sheet. The mind sees what it wants to see. It plays tricks, vicious ones. It can tell you that your best friend loves you the way you love her when she doesn’t, she simply doesn’t.

Sherlock may be sleepy and compliant and lovely and dangerous and even sentimental at present, but none of it is because she’s in love with John back. Sherlock has The Work, her seven-percent solution, her experiments, her cigarettes, her flaring brilliance.

She doesn’t need John. Not that way.

John clenches her jaw and blinks back furious tears. How dare Sherlock be so blind? How _dare_ she? It’s not the time to be angry at Sherlock—she’s just narrowly escaped heart failure, for God’s sake. But still. Suddenly, John realizes she's still holding the coffee she'd gotten ages earlier, waiting to hear if Sherlock was alright.

The sight triggers a buried memory, and suddenly she is back in St. Bart’s laboratory, meeting the gaze of an acerbic woman in tailored trousers and a red button-down, demanding "coffee, black, two sugars," and the grey fog of John's pain—pain in her still-healing shoulder, pain in her shattered heart—is lifting in the light of that look.

Sherlock had saved John’s life that day. The gun in her desk drawer stopped looking like John's way out, and became Sherlock's armor instead, as the two of them pounded through the streets, aglow. Sherlock has saved John’s life every day since they met, and John would gladly give Sherlock her life, her breath, her heart, if ever she asked for it.

Another fact.

She smiles an awful smile and tosses her coffee away. Her phone vibrates against her side and she reaches for it, fingers clumsy with adrenaline.

It’s Clara.

“What?” John says upon answering, fed up with humanity in general and in no mood to talk with her sister’s wife.

“John—”

Immediately John knows something isn’t right. “What is it, Clara? Are you alright?”

“John, Harry—she’s not well.”

A pulse of fear beats through John. “Explain.”

“It’s—she’s—it’s gotten bad again,” Clara stutters.

“Oh, fuck.” John pinches the bridge of her nose. “How bad exactly?”

"I don't know, I'm not a bloody doctor! She came home blind drunk. She can barely move. She's groaning a lot."

“Where is she?” John punches the wall, once, twice, both furious and terrified.

“In Buckingham Palace, John—where the hell do you think she is?”

“A&E?” John asks, knowing Harry has exhibited neither the wherewithal nor the forethought to go to such a place the four times she’s had alcohol poisoning, but hoping anyway.

“Jesus, no. She’s in the sitting room trying to keep her organs on the inside. She needs you, John. We both do. You’re a doctor.”

“Jesus…fuck,” hisses John, spinning a defeated circle. She slumps against the wall, clutching her aching head. “Is that all I’m good for anymore—my medical certification? Because I can certainly direct you to the nearest clinic, Clara.”

“It’s no—“

“And may I add that I’m currently waiting for Sherlock to wake up from a morphine induced haze, due to her having just had emergency surgery on a heart obstruction,” John growls, “Not that anyone fucking _cares_.”

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry. Is she okay?”

“She’s—yes. She’s fine,” John says, glaring at a passing doctor. “But the point is that she needs me here. Harry’s a grown woman and so are you, so you’re both just going to have to figure this out on your own.”

“But she’s your sister!” Clara protests, sounding disgusted. “You ought to be there for her.”

“She’s your wife,” John counters, “and Sherlock is my best friend, and I’m all she’s got.”

“She’s got a brother, hasn’t she?”

“Her brother has his head shoved so far up his pretentious arse he wouldn’t know what to do for her." John knows this is a lie—Mycroft's had to save Sherlock before, when she was barely more than a child and overdosing on cocaine—but John needs desperately to be here for Sherlock. Harry's chosen her pain. Sherlock hasn't.

“John, please.” Clara sounds lost and desperate, and John feels a throb of empathy despite herself. “Can’t your housekeeper look after Sherlock?”

“She’s not our—never mind." John looks to her left and sees Bailey approaching. Concerned, she lowers the phone from her ear. “Is everything alright?”

“Quite,” he informs her, “but Sherlock wants you again.”

“I’ll be right there,” says John, heart accelerating madly.

“John? John!” Clara is outraged on the other end of the line.

“Fine,” John snaps, adjusting her mobile and moving down the hall after Bailey. “I’ll see if Mrs. Hudson can care for Sherlock while she recovers, if that’s really what Harry needs me to do. "But you need to understand that if Sherlock needs me, she comes first."

 

…

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Harry says upon John’s entrance. It is a heart-felt, deeply emotional _fuck,_ and John is strangely glad to hear it.

“Hello to you, too.” It’s roughly three in the morning and John’s eyes are stinging with fatigue. True to form, Mrs. Hudson had arrived at the hospital to care for Sherlock and accompany her home the following day, much to John’s immense gratitude. She moves toward her sister, carrying a large bottle of water, a pack of paracetamol, and an ice pack.

Clara is sitting on the sofa beside Harry, stroking Harry’s unkempt hair.

“How bad is she now?” asks John.

“Um, bad?"

“Awful,” Harry cuts in, rolling carefully onto her side and moaning at the motion.

John dumps her belongings onto the rug and glances sidelong at Clara. “Have you given her any pain medication yet?”

“No.”

“Good, it probably would have been bad this early on. We’ll wait another forty minutes to an hour and try then.” John sinks onto her knees in front of Harry and reaches for her sister’s wrist. “Clara, would you mind, er, stepping out for a second?”

“I absolutely would mind! She’s my wife and I’m not leaving.”

“She’s my sister, and I need to talk to her alone,” John snaps, reversing their earlier conversation on the phone.

“For God’s sake, John. We’ve been together for twelve years—I’ve seen it all.”

“Would you _both_ ,” groans Harry, “stop acting as though I’m not here? If John wants to talk to me alone, let her fucking do it.”

“Stop saying ‘fucking’,” Clara sighs.

“Fucking,” grunts Harry, eyes red and lit with something rather manic. “Fucking fucking fuck. I will fucking say whatever I fucking want to say, oka—“

“Jesus, just—shut up!” John explodes, flinging both the paracetamol and ice pack to the floor. “I can’t stand either of you right now and possibly I never will again, so would both of you just think of me for one bloody instant and do what I need you to do?”

Clara shoots to her feet, fuming. “Fine, John. Thanks for the compassion. Really kind of you. Really special.”

John bristles. “Oh, don’t you fucking start that agai—“

“God, what is it with both you?” Clara retorts, fists balled. “Is there some sort of genetic mutation that causes you to feel the need to say _fuck_ every other second?” She grabs her mug and stalks from the room. Distantly, John hears her slamming things about in the kitchen.

“Well, she’s a keeper,” says John, and in a parallel universe some part of her is laughing herself hoarse.

“Go to hell.”

John rolls her eyes and leans closer to Harry, inspecting her for any sort of greyish pallor. She looks normal enough so far, thank god. “Harry…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

John grabs for her sister’s hand and squeezes until it turns white. “I need you to.”

“It’s nothing new.” Harry is bitter, curled on the sofa like a young child. Her breath smells sharp, sour. It makes John’s heart catch. “I’m…a fuck-up.”

“Stop.”

“At least I’m not a liar.” Harry turns her face into John’s hand and John cradles it, throat tight.

“Addiction is a disease,” John murmurs, thinking of someone else when she says it. “It’s not your fault.”

“Bullshit.”

“When Dad died, we—“

“ _You_ became a doctor and I became…this.”

“You’re the one with the high-paying executive job and wife,” John reminds her. “I ended up getting sent home on partially honorable leave with a ruined shoulder, a limp, clinical PTSD, anger issues bigger than the bloody sun, and a pessimistic perspective. I’m not who I ever wanted to be.”

Harry looks at her for a long moment, and it is full of everything they’ve both endured but cannot say. “I know, John. I do.”

She groans and gags then, and John heaves Harry upright so she can vomit into the wastebin. Moments later, John finds herself wiping vomit off someone’s mouth for the second time that night.

After a short eternity, Harry recommences the conversation. “Jacob’s coming to stay tomorrow. Well, today, really. I’ve no fucking idea what time it is anymore.”

John blinks. “Jacob…Stuart?”

“That’s the one.” Harry closes her eyes and palpates her temple.

“ _Why_?”

“Because you both went to med school together and he happens to specialize in addiction, that’s why.”

John glowers at the wall, seething silently.

“Get me some coffee, would you?”

“Decaf only.”

“Fuck you,” says Harry, but she’s very close to smiling. “Oh, and John?”

John turns, halfway to the door. “Yeah?”

“I realize he’s an old flame, but no having sex with Jacob under my roof. Got it?”

John has a sudden, tempting fantasy of murdering her sister.

“Shit, Harry,” she mutters, and takes herself away.

…

 

Jacob is still attractive, in a vaguely bland way. John feels better when she realizes she doesn't feel the stir of interest in her stomach that she used to around him.

“John,” he says, holding a cup of tea in one hand and extending the other. “You look fantastic.”

“Liar,” John replies, but she smiles anyway. He looks at home in the morning sun, particles of light catching on his greying auburn hair.

“You must be exhausted.”

“I am.”

“So sorry to hear about your sister. How’s she holding up?”

“Intolerable as ever,” John says, laughing a bit, then wishing she hadn’t when Jacob's face glows with not-entirely-platonic interest.

“How’s…?” Jacob struggles a bit and John takes pity.

“Sherlock? She’s—well—she just got out of a minor emergency operation on her heart, so she’ll be out of commission for a while. Git,” John adds, and is instantly dismayed by the sheer amount of affection in her voice.

“Jesus, that’s terrible. I’m glad she’s alright, though.” Jacob steps out of his shoes and follows John into the sitting room. Harry is curled into a ball in the corner of the sofa, Clara eyeing John rather inhospitably nearby. “Has everyone had breakfast?”

Harry looks suddenly nauseous, and John jabs Jacob with her elbow. “Best not to talk about food at present,” she says delicately, and Jacob winces in understanding.

“Right,” he declares, and goes over to check Harry’s vitals. Behind him, John bites her lip, wondering whether she ought to call Sherlock yet. Before she can decide, the doorbells rings. Once, pause. Again, pause. Again, _pause_.

It can’t be.

John goes to the door and opens it. Sherlock is directly on the other side.

John stares for exactly two and a half seconds, then she explodes. “What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on bed rest for four days _minimum._ I told Mrs. Hudson everything—why on earth did she let you go?"

“She didn’t,” Sherlock says lightly, and then, “May I come in?”

“God!” John expels, standing back to allow Sherlock room to pass. She looks well enough but— “You’ve no business being here, Sherlock. ~~~~

Sherlock pulls John’s Browning from the depths of her Belstaff and presses it into her hand. “I think you forgot something.”

John’s fingers close around the gun on instinct. “What am I going to need this for? Shooting my sister if she gets too annoying?”

“Do shut up, John,” says Sherlock. “You always need it.”

“Only because you’re always getting us into trouble.”

“You’re quite welcome.” Sherlock flashes her a quicksilver smile but it disappears the instant Jacob rounds the corner.

“Ah, hello! Who’s this then?” he asks, glancing at John before resuming his perplexed staring at Sherlock.

“This,” says John, “is Sherlock.”

“Oh,” says Jacob. “ _Oh_.”

“…who I’m currently very angry at because she is supposed to be at home resting.” John fixes Sherlock with a glare.

“Well, I say the more the merrier,” Jacob declares, turning back toward the sitting room.

“Yes, you would say that, wouldn’t you,” mutters Sherlock as soon as Jacob has stepped out of earshot.

John can’t help laughing. “Well, as long as you’re here,” she says, “go sit down with everyone else—and don’t you dare pull any kind of shenanigans. You need rest. That’s an order,” she adds, when Sherlock just looks at her, and Sherlock smiles.

 

…

 

Jacob suggests they watch a film that evening while Harry rests. John agrees gladly. She loves movies, and she desperately needs something to distract her.

“What shall we watch?” Jacob inquires, fiddling with the fire.

Sherlock is sitting opposite him, hands steepled in front of her nose, scowling. She is inexplicably short-tempered with Jacob and has been since this morning. She’s always short-tempered with people, but today it’s more intense than usual. John’s belly gives a sudden flutter and she tamps it down, irritated. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m rather a fan of Bond,” she replies, turning a page of her book.

“We both are,” Sherlock adds, a bit shortly.

“Right, then. Bond it is!” Jacob locates the DVD from the overwhelming collection beside Clara’s armchair, and winks at John in passing.

John does not reciprocate. She can feel Sherlock’s eyes upon her, oddly disapproving, as though John has just recently committed a crime. It’s all very bizarre. Frankly, Sherlock has no right to be this much of an arse to Jacob or John, especially not in such a visibly seething manner. It’s her own fault for breaking out to bring John a bloody handgun.

Jacob sinks onto the sofa and rests his arm along the back of it. “Join me,” he says, smiling broadly at John.

John does. Sherlock begins to jiggle her leg.

…

 

The movie seems to go on for ages. John glances helplessly at the clock. How are they not finished yet? Somewhere around the one hour mark, Jacob had moved his arm and put it around John’s shoulders. Sherlock had glanced sharply at them and then announced she had to go take her medication, and left without a look at John. John had watched her go, miserable.

This had to end.

Jacob turns his head fractionally to the left and peers at John. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think you could be a female Bond.”

John snorts.

“No, really. You’re brave and dashing and it doesn’t hurt that you’re also terribly attractive.” He grins at her and John feels defeated, somehow, Sherlock’s absence across the room more real to her than the weight of Jacob's arm.

"I’m really not.”

“You really are,” he counters, unsmiling now.

His eyes are radiating sincerity and suddenly John despises it, the way he thinks he has a chance with her if just strokes her ego enough—but that’s wrong of her because she knows he isn’t that kind of man. She knows that if Jacob says something, he means it wholeheartedly. She doesn’t regret their past, but there’s no future for them.

Not when John’s heart aches for Sherlock so desperately.

She and Sherlock…they don’t talk about _this_ sort of thing. Their thing. Whatever that means. But even though Sherlock doesn’t love her, John knows that by accepting Jacob’s advances, she’s breaking an unspoken vow. She hasn’t dated anyone since Sherlock died, and she doubts she ever will again.

The day Sherlock went over the edge of St. Bart’s, John had had an epiphany, and the epiphany was this: If Sherlock survived, John would be there, always and always, to watch her absurd flatmate blow up her own test tubes and converse with herself about how one might murder someone else with nothing but a toothpick and a cigarette lighter.

Even if their hair turned grey and they grew tired and death pressed down upon them like a swift approaching earthquake and Sherlock never saw John as anything more than a dear friend—John would be there.

She’s never been in love like this. Or perhaps she’s never been in love.

“I have to go,” John says, rising from the couch with a tumble of butterflies in her stomach. “I’m sorry.”

Jacob blinks up at her, his mouth tight with something that looks rather a lot like hurt. “I—alright,” he sighs. “I understand.”

Sherlock has gone and John doesn’t know why, but she needs to. She wanders upstairs, feeling her pulse throbbing in her neck. “Sherlock? You in here?”

John steps into the guest bedroom, squinting into the dark. The window was closed last time she checked, but now it’s propped open, giving way to a bluish-violet panel of sky. She moves toward it, and sees the faint outline of Sherlock’s body in the dark, her torso blocking out the stars.

“John,” says Sherlock without turning around.

“If you want to go home you’re more than welcome to,” John replies, grunting as she heaves herself out the window and onto the stretch of roof where Sherlock is sitting. “You don’t seem too happy to be here. Just an observation,” she adds hastily, when Sherlock gives her a dark look. “I’m just saying, I’m not the one who made you break out just to bring me my Browning.”

“Blame the gun,” says Sherlock, reclining with her arms behind her head. She is, in this moment, lovelier than John has ever seen her.

It becomes difficult to breathe.

“So,” John murmurs, staring out over the rooftops.

“So,” Sherlock agrees.

“Why’d you really come here? You must be exhausted and in no small amount of pain.”

“I told you. You forgot your gun.”

“I’m not an idiot, you know,” says John, annoyed.

“Whoever put that into your head?”

“Just an absurd, impossible friend of mine. You wouldn’t know her.”

Sherlock smiles a little and looks up at John from beneath her lashes, which does something dangerous to John’s stomach.

“John,” Sherlock says, for the second time in several minutes.

“Yes?”

“Being here tonight—well, not just tonight…it made me realize I—um.” She pauses, looking lost and silvery beneath the moon. “I have something I need to come to terms with.”

“Something,” John repeats. Her heart has gone rather still.

Sherlock sits up suddenly, drawing her knees into her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “John, I—I’m not the woman you think I am.”

John digests this for a moment. “And what kind of woman do you believe I think you are?”

“A cold one. Not like you. Someone who…” Sherlock breaks off. “Someone who doesn’t feel things.”

“That’s not the kind of woman I think you are,” John says immediately, earnest and concerned.

 “Just, please. Listen.”

“I am. I’m listening.”

Sherlock closes her eyes for a moment. “I know what it's like,” she says finally, swallowing hard, “to want someone."

And then John does stop breathing.

Sherlock turns her head, painfully, marginally, until she and John are face to face. They’re close, much too close, but neither of them are moving away. John shivers.

It is going to happen. Now.

Her first kiss was with a boy named Roger at the age of thirteen.

Her first kiss with Sherlock is going to happen right here, at the age of thirty-seven, longing and breathless and inevitable. 

“Well,” says John, and it feels as though someone else is speaking, someone not-her, “of course you do, you’re human.“

Then Sherlock makes an anguished little sound and kisses John. Softly. Right on the mouth.

John’s head spins. This is so stunning, so unprecedented, that she can feel her cells rearranging themselves permanently. Sherlock’s mouth is warm on hers and it sends heat rushing down her body, through her blood.

It is indescribable.

John tilts her head to the right and Sherlock follows suit, and there, ah, _God_. Somewhere along the line John’s wound her arms around Sherlock’s waist and Sherlock’s gotten hers around John’s upper back and the two of them are kissing, and it’s nearly too much.

Nearly.

Sherlock makes a sound John’s never heard her make before—half desire, half satisfaction—and John’s brain goes white. She puts her hands on either side of Sherlock’s face and kisses her as deeply as she knows how, and suddenly Sherlock breaks away, breathing hard.

She looks into John’s face for a moment, then away.

“Sherlock,” gasps John, “why did yo—“

“I can’t do this.” Sherlock pulls her arms from John’s body and the absence of them is excruciating.

“Sherlock, wait!” John scrambles up after her but Sherlock has darted back into the house, faster than John knew she was capable. John tears after her, her jeans catching on the windowsill. “Fuck,” she says, struggling with the material.

Below, the front door slams and John knows, her fingers stilling.

Sherlock is gone.

…

 

John texts Sherlock dozens of times with no response before she gives up. She’s lying face down on Harry’s guest bed, eyes burning with tears. She aches to go to Sherlock, but duty to her sister means she’s stuck where she is for another several days at least.

Her lips tingle intermittently with the reminder of The Kiss, making John’s knees weak, making her tremble. She will die if she never gets another chance at it, another opportunity to feel so close to Sherlock, so tremendously whole. She begs and bargains with the universe, but it continues to evade her.

“Please,” she asks of the ceiling, rolling onto her back. “Tell me it meant something. God, tell me it meant something.”

John knows better than to touch herself now, in the throes of such breath-taking worry, but she can’t help it. Her hands find the delicate, burning spot she’s become so fluent at pleasing, and she inhales through her nose at the sensation. Thinking of Sherlock while she wanks is a habit she meant to unlearn, but she’s too defenseless to reject the desire anymore. It’s Sherlock John’s thinking of now; Sherlock’s hands, Sherlock’s eyes, Sherlock’s mouth, Sherlock’s kiss.

A bolt of heat shoots up her spine and John hisses, face flushing.

If Sherlock were here now, John would hold her like the tender, dear creature she is, and lift Sherlock’s chin with her knuckle, and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her. And, if Sherlock would permit it, she would do more. So very much more.

John’s mind returns to the sound Sherlock made during their kiss, that deep, crimson sound, and she comes almost instantly, breathing Sherlock’s name.

“Oh,” she gasps.

O _h._

 

...

 

“I’m a lot of things,” Jacob says on the final day of their stay, “but I’m not blind.”

John stops fiddling with her suitcase and glances toward him, blushing up to her hairline. “What do you mean?”

Jacob just smiles at her, bending to gather his belongings without a word. “Take care of yourself, Watson.”

The change of address is immediately significant. He knows, and John knows, and there will be no more unwanted advances.

“You too,” says John simply, and she means it. They embrace for a short moment, then Jacob releases her and walks out the door.

It’s time to find Sherlock.

It’s time to go home.

…

 

John is a soldier. It will always be in her bones, that gut-instinct, that nerve, that unflinching ability to stare into the mouth of death without the faintest trace of fear. But despite all her years of blood and bullets and ridiculous courage, she's trembling a little as she climbs the stairs up to 221B.

The door is already unlocked, so she pockets her keys and pushes through it.

“Sherlock?”

John looks around, heart dropping the instant she sees how painfully _neat_ everything is. Sherlock has always left everything lying around—human windpipes and test tubes and files and jackknives. This is most unlike her. “Sherlock?” John repeats, noticing that for perhaps the first time in their entire relationship, Sherlock may actually have hoovered. The muscles over John’s jaw twitch, her previous anxiety magnified tenfold. This isn’t right. Sherlock can’t just…kiss John, then attempt to remove all traces of herself from their living space. That isn’t how it works.

She must be home, because she’d never leave the door unlocked otherwise, but— “Where are you?” John calls, noting that her own chair is pushed at an odd angle.

In fact, the rug beside the chair has been peeled back in one corner. Odd, indeed. John walks over to it, nerves tingling. There, in plain sight, is a gunmetal-coloured box filled with needles. She comes closers, frowning. Amid the needles is a slim, transparent tube, wound up like a lifeless snake.

“Oh,” John groans softly. “Oh, God.”

Sherlock wouldn’t. Would she?

John slams the lid shut with the toe of her boot, the hinges creaking in protest. She notices something else then, something which makes her blood run cold. Two torn sterilization packets are lying on the rug, needles missing.

“Sherlock!” John shouts, fist clenched around the empty plastic. “Where the hell are you? Answer me!”

She ducks into the hall, opens the bathroom door. The tub is empty. A dreadful stillness has invaded the flat. A wave of nausea sweeps through her at the pervasive smell of Sherlock’s shampoo. It had always made John weak, but today it makes her weak in an awful, frantic way. She pushes open the door into Sherlock's room. Also empty. There is nowhere left for Sherlock to have gone but up to John's room, so John takes the stairs three at a time. She wrenches the door to her room open, stops short and curses. There's no one there.

“Shit,” she breathes, sweat breaking out at her hairline.

It’s her fault that Sherlock jumped that day, that Sherlock was alone at the end. John told her she was a machine, and left her, and now Sherlock thinks she needs to be alone—that being alone will protect her this time, too. So it's John’s fault that Sherlock won’t answer her texts or calls, her fault that she didn’t have the guts to hold onto Sherlock after the kiss and tell Sherlock that she doesn’t need to be afraid, that John is in love with her and has been, always. Since the start. John's hand goes to her mouth. It's all her fault.

Lost in grief, she weeps.

 

…

 

“John?”

John’s heart turns over.

She opens her eyes. She’d fallen fast asleep on the sofa waiting for Sherlock to return, not knowing if she would. But Sherlock is there now, kneeling beside her, looking small and contrite and marvelous. John stares at her, sucking in a breath.

“It’s—you’re— _you_ ,” she cries, mangled, which makes no sense at all yet Sherlock's face fills with emotion.

“John,” she says. “John, I—“

Relief restores some of John’s anger and she glares suddenly at Sherlock, outraged. “What the fuck were you doing with all—you know—that?” She gestures at the room behind Sherlock, as though this is a sufficient explanation for what she is trying to ask.

Sherlock flinches at John’s emphasis on the final word and blinks eight times in swift succession. “Getting rid of it, if you really want to know.”

“Why now?” John asks, her voice quivering most inconveniently.

“Because,” Sherlock says, lifting her gaze from the floor, “I thought it would distract me. I had to get rid of it, or I'd have used it to forget."

“You—Jesus.” John hauls herself into a sitting position and puts her head in her hands. “So you wanted to, what,” she grits out, “delete your feelings? Delete me? Is that it?”

“No, John!" Sherlock sounds shaken. "Why on earth would I—? I wouldn't delete _you._ Never you."

“Then what—”

“I’m not finished,” Sherlock cuts in. She rises from her knees and begins to pace, the way she does when something is particularly difficult for her. "I shouldn't have kissed you. It wasn't fair to you. I'm not good at this, John. Sentiment, romance. Feelings. I could never make you happy. I'd let you down, hurt you. I'm an addict, currently clean, who solves murders for a living. I'm a genius who's useless at dealing with people. I've pushed away anyone who's ever cared for me, except you. And then I went and kissed you in a fit of jealousy, when I know full well I can never be what you need. I’m thoughtless and self-absorbed and—and all wrong, and you—you're John, you're compassionate and generous and brave. You deserve so much better than me." Sherlock's voice is trembling, just a little. She takes a deep breath, biting her lip. "I thought I might use the cocaine to forget that I've just ruined whatever's been good between us. But then—it was real. Even if I shouldn't have kissed you, even if I should—move out, now, or—or give you your space, whatever you need, I shouldn't forget what I did. I should remember, because I meant it. More than I've ever meant anything, I think.” Sherlock swallows. “I want to remember. The drugs make everything so still and cold and void, but you, John—“ She stops short, voice breaking. “You make everything so exquisitely warm.”

John doesn’t breathe for a moment.

Then she stands and catches Sherlock by her beautiful hands, stilling her pacing. Sherlock stands watching her, eyes wet. She looks terrified. John holds her hands tightly, presses her slowly, gently, backward, until she's pushed up against the wall, wide-eyed. Then, as carefully as she can, John kisses her.

After a moment, Sherlock breaks away, breathless. "But you—"

"I _want_ you."

"But I'm rude. I'm too blunt."

"So am I!"

"I'm not romantic."

"For God's sake, Sherlock, you kissed me on a roof under a sky brimming with stars. Besides, I think chasing murderers is romantic."

"I'll get lost in my experiments. I'll talk too much. Or not enough. I'll never come to bed."

"Oh, I think you will," John says softly, and Sherlock's breath catches.

"You really mean it. You really want me," she says, and John laughs.

"God, Sherlock. Yes."

Then Sherlock's arms are around John and she's lifting her half off her feet, and John buries herself in Sherlock, tasting the salt on her lips, the freshly eased heartache.

“Oh,” Sherlock gasps out, and John kisses the corner of Sherlock’s mouth, once, then again.

Oh, indeed.

Of course, it's just then that the stairwell door opens and Mrs. Hudson bustles in

“Evening, girls,” she coos, unconcerned.

Sherlock turns the most delightful shade of pink, which _really_ doesn’t help. John stays where she is, cradled the circle of Sherlock’s arms, resting her cheek on Sherlock’s chest and listening to that miraculous heart beat away.

“Er, hello,” Sherlock replies stiffly, and John grins to herself.

“I need you both to tell me what you think of this casserole,” Mrs. Hudson hums, making her way into the kitchen. “It’s a new recipe and I’m not sure what it is exactly, but something about it just isn’t quite right. Maybe a bit more paprika would do the trick, but—“ she deposits the casserole onto the table while Sherlock ducks her head to kiss John again, as though helpless against her desire, “you never know. Goodness, Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson adds, discarding the aluminum foil nearby, “I do believe this is the neatest I’ve ever seen your flat. What’s gotten into you, dear?” She smiles, entirely unabashed by the kissing, the blushing, and the current arrangement of John-and-Sherlock-in-each-other’s-arms. "Let me know what you think of the casserole, then, dears." She winks, then, and slips out the door.

John lifts her head to look Sherlock in the eye once the door has closed. “I love you,” she says plainly. 

“ _John_.” Sherlock buries her head in John’s shoulder and for a moment John is afraid she’s said too much.

But then Sherlock kisses her neck once, just below her pulse point, and draws back to look John in the eye. “I love you, too. More than anything.”

John pulls in a deep breath, feeling tears rise in her eyes. “Why did you never say?” John’s hands stroke along the slopes and curves of Sherlock's back, her hips, memorizing the topography of her.

Sherlock removes her head from John’s neck, looking terribly earnest. “I didn’t think you’d want to hear it. There were always, you know,” she waves her hands vaguely. “Men."

“Fuck men,” John declares. They laugh.

“Wasn’t that the idea?”

“Now, that’s quite enough,” John murmurs, drawing Sherlock’s face down into kissing range once more. They taste each other's lips slowly, pressing deeper into each other's mouths. Learning each other.

“Why didn’t _you_ tell _me_?” Sherlock enquires sometime later, lips brushing against John’s forehead in a way that fills John’s stomach with heat.

“I wanted to, terribly,” John says honestly. “I just never imagined you’d feel the same about me. I did try distracting myself with men, but it really was just a distraction. It was you from the start. No one else compared, Sherlock."

“Are you sure you didn’t have feelings for any of the others?” Sherlock’s voice is even, but her eyebrows pull together uncertainly.

“Do you really think I’d have put up with you for all this time,” John says dryly, “if I wasn’t completely in love with you?”

“An excellent point,” Sherlock concedes, her voice warming, and John’s heart aches in newly wondrous ways. 

“You ridiculous woman,” she murmurs, resting her forehead on Sherlock’s chest. “You ridiculous, extraordinary woman.”

There's a long pause while Sherlock's hands move over John’s neck and bury themselves deep in her hair. Then, “Lestrade called this morning, before you got home.”

“Oh?

“Stabbing in Bedford Square. We could do it if we hurried.” Sherlock's still a little breathless. There's a question in her tone.

“Ah, a stabbing. Your favourite.” John kisses Sherlock once just between the eyebrows, a tender benediction, then releases her. 

"My second favorite thing, John." Sherlock steps back a bit. "If you really want to, then—shall we?"

John beams back, takes Sherlock's hand. Feels for the Browning tucked into her waistband. "Oh, God, yes."

 They depart for the crime scene, together. 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A HUGE thank you to my beta reader and MVP!! You were so enthusiastic and amazing every step of the way, Emily, and you made this fic shiiiine. I love you. 
> 
> And to Maya, I began this with you in mind and finished it that way. Thank you for always inspiring me, despite the bittersweetness of it all. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr @tendersapphic for more soft gay things.


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